Author: rostanetek
Join Aurora Alliance CDS Network of Universities
The Capacity Development Support Programme (CDS) of the Aurora European Universities Alliance is looking for universities to collaborate with.
The CDS programme is designed to help reduce the disparities between the research-leading and research-emerging countries in Europe by assisting universities in Central-Eastern Europe and Neighboring Countries to develop their institutional capacity for academic excellence and societal relevance. The expected outcomes are to spread the Aurora Alliance principles, values, skills, working processes and practical learnings to some 30 target universities in Europe and beyond.
To this end, Aurora Capacity Development Support Network of Universities (CDS Network of Universities) is being set up, with the purpose to articulate and strengthen the collaboration in supporting universities that are interested in the same objectives as Aurora Alliance member universities: in equipping diverse student populations with the skills and mind-set to address societal challenges as social entrepreneurs and innovators; in engaging with students and stakeholders at regional, national, European and global level; and in making our universities sustainable organisations.
The Aurora CDS Network of Universities is an inclusive platform for universities that want to work with Aurora’s common objectives. Applicant universities should freely express interest in the Aurora Alliance CDS mission as described in the Introduction section of this document by submitting a Letter of Intent and a University Fact Sheet to Tereza Kalousková via email at
The criteria for joining us is the following:
- Applicant universities understand the key objectives of the Aurora Alliance programme and are interested in furthering in at least some of these objectives at their institutions.
- Applicant universities express willingness to invest time and bring their resources and expertise to the collaboration.
- Applicants are made aware of external funding needed for collaboration activities developing in the Network.
Applicants will be assessed on a rolling basis 2021-2022 by the CDS Task Team, led by Palacky University Olomouc with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as co-lead. In the assessment, the opinion of the Associate Partners will be sought.
What We Offer – Network Programme
During the 2021-2023 period of collaboration, we focus our exchanges on awareness-raising training events and projects developed together, focusing:
- Virtual Mobility/Internationalization at home
- Co-creation and Service Learning
- Inclusive, Equal and Diverse Education
- Academic Competence Skill in Social Entrepreneurship.
The continued programme and activates of the Network will be a subject of evolving collaboration and co-sharing of interests in the internationalisation of higher education.
Cooperation Arrangement
There will be no legally binding duties between the members as a result of entering into the Network collaboration. Any bilateral agreements between the Network universities are subject to the inter-institutional arrangements and internal institutional regulations and policy in international cooperation.
For more information, please access the information sheet .
Aurora Alliance – Research and Innovation for Societal Impact Project Accepted
It is our greatest pleasure to announce that the Aurora Alliance application for research and innovation has been honoured with a grant within the SWAFS program of Horizon 2020.
With the acceptance of this proposal, the alliance will further develop the Aurora European University Alliance program’s research and innovation dimension. The University of Iceland will coordinate the Aurora RI SWAFS project.
The focus of the Aurora Alliance – Research and Innovation for Societal Impact project is to strengthen and empower research support by sharing research infrastructure, strengthening and aligning Open Science policies in line with EU frameworks, and cooperation with other actors and empowering staff and students. This will complement the Aurora Learning for Societal Impact strategy with a long-term Aurora strategy towards research and innovation (R&I) for Societal Impact, aiming to support the achievement of the SDGs related to the four priority domains of the Aurora Alliance programme: i) Sustainability and Climate Change, ii) Digital Society and Global Citizenship, iii) Health and Wellbeing, and iv) Culture, Diversity and Identity.
In line with the overall objective, the project will develop and achieve seven specific objectives that provide the necessary stepping stones for the Aurora Alliance structural and sustainable change. The seven objectives are:
- Objective 1: Development of an Aurora support plan for research and innovation
- Objective 2: Develop best practices for pooling research infrastructures, expertise, data and resources
- Objective 3: Strengthen cooperation on entrepreneurial activity and creating an Aurora innovation ecosystem
- Objective 4: Develop the capacities and capabilities of Aurora researchers and support staff
- Objective 5: Sharing best practices on Open Science
- Objective 6: Embedding Citizens and societal engagement further into our research activities
- Objective 7: Maximise impact through collaboration with other European Universities
By matching the educational and institutional focus on support with a research and innovation aspect, the Aurora RI project will further complement the goals of the Erasmus+ project and intensify and deepen the links between the universities on several levels. This, in turn, will help to build a common identity as part of the European knowledge system, which combines education with research and innovation. We are glad that we are part of such an innovative programme and look forward to realising our first objectives.
For further information on the research and innovation project contact: Úlfar Kristinn Gíslason at ulfarg@hi.is
Aurora Care and Compassion Student Event
The Aurora Student Council is delighted to be hosting the Aurora Care and Compassion Student event. This free virtual conference is packed with engaging content showing how Aurora cares for issues in modern society and will get students involved in activities and conversation across 4 key areas. These areas are Mental Health and Wellbeing, Open Educational Resources, Celebrating and Promoting Diversity, and Sustainability.
Students’ participation in these activities and conversations will give them practical skills to take away and also help Aurora embed student voice into the heart of many exciting projects. We want students to learn about Aurora and equip them with the tools to champion Aurora’s values in their own universities.
If you are a student interested in any of these topics or you know of students that would be interested, click the link here to register your interest and come and join us on March 30th 2021.
Click here for the program of the event.
Follow this page for updates on this event
Aurora Spring Academic Meeting
Meet peers facing similar challenges in providing students with high-quality education and with international opportunities in a forced online environment.
Learn what support Aurora is organising to assist academic teachers in meeting these challenges.
On March 30th, from 9 am to 1 pm (CET), Aurora is hosting its Spring Academic meeting. It will be a platform to meet with peers and discuss how to provide high quality learning under the currently restricted conditions.
The Aurora Spring Academic meeting is a follow up to the Aurora Community building event of January 28th, 2019, focusing on the same domains.
The Spring meeting is an event in the Aurora Alliance European University programme, which aims to strengthen the way in which Aurora students are equipped with the skills and mind-sets to act as social entrepreneurs and innovators in addressing societal problems.
The Event
The Spring Academic meeting aims at academic who feel attached to the following domains:
- Sustainability & Climate Change
- Digital Society & Global Citizenship
- Health & Well-being
- Culture: Diversity & Identity
- Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
The Spring event is organised mostly in parallel strands for each of the domains to meet. There will be ample time in the programme to freely discuss topics of mutual interest – in education, research or otherwise. The core of the programme will be sessions on two key challenges in higher education with the current restrictions:
- How are we as academic teachers finding our way from high-quality analogue (or offline) to digital (or online) education,
- How can we continue to provide our students with a meaningful international experience, particularly in the pandemic and post-pandemic context,
Topics and tools
The Aurora Spring Academic event is an excellent opportunity to find out how your university’s participation in Aurora can be valuable to you: as a platform to meet with peers, find out how you can learn from and with each other, learn about the tools Aurora is developing to support the member universities in providing academically excellent and societally relevant education.
In the sessions, you will have the opportunity to discuss what you see as the most pressing issues in these two key challenges – and how these can be addressed.
With the maintenance of quality in virtual education, there will be specific attention to higher education’s value beyond the subject-related knowledge and skills.
With continued international dimensions with less physical mobility, there will be specific attention on tools and platforms for virtual mobility and online joint courses.
The Aurora Spring Academic event will be hosted on the Gatherly platform, which allows you to freely move and chat with participants in groups of two’s or three’s or more.
Info-desks
Before and after the sessions, you may visit info desks on the various tools and platforms developed in the Aurora European University Alliance programme; see below under the programme description.
You can stop by the info desks of your interest and get in touch with the colleagues involved.
Take-aways
So what can you expect as takeaways from this event?
- Meet, discuss and arrange follow-up contact with peers on your issues and concerns in the transit from analogue to high-quality digital education and/or students’ international opportunities
- Find out about existing good practices in high-quality digital education and virtual international experience
- Learn about useful Aurora tools and platforms for these challenges and meet the experts who can help you use them.
Please view the full programme of the event here.
Follow this page for updates on this event.
International Learning Lab
On the 17th of June 2021, the Aurora Service Learning Toolbox (SL Toolbox) will be launched at the International Learning Lab and will take place from 15:30 to 18:00 CEST.
The Toolbox will provide relevant tools/resources to interested teachers and students to learn about SL. These tools could further strengthen existing SL courses and can provide inspiration to teachers on how to transform an existing course into an SL one. It will also have resources for both teachers and students to learn about the essential concepts of SL including participation, reflexivity, and community engagement.
The event is open for students, teachers and experts from the Aurora universities and other national/international guest Universities for a wider discourse on service learning.
The event will include talks from international SL experts: Prof. Robert Bringle (Professor Emeritus, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, USA), Prof. Wolfgang Stark (Professor Emeritus, Universität Duisburg Essen, Germany), and Prof. Marjolein Zweekhorst (Professor, Athena Institute, VU Amsterdam).
The event will also include presentations of students from Interdisciplinary Service Learning (iCSL2) – an “Aurorised” course open to Master students from any discipline/program across Aurora universities.
Click here for more information and access to the zoom meeting ID and password.
Digital Society, Social Justice and Academic Education
Date and time: Tuesday, March 23, 2021, at 5:00 p.m. (17:00) Central European Time (UTC+1) Panellists: Saa Dittoh (UDS, Ghana), Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer (UNIMAS, Malaysia), Anna Bon (VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands) Moderator: Hans Akkermans (w4ra.org, the Netherlands) An important open question of Digital Humanism is how ethical and social aspects of digital technologies and associated matters of human values and social justice can be handled appropriately in academic research and education. A possible approach is to create interdisciplinary courses on ethics and philosophy of technology such as “Tech Ethics”. This panel investigates approaches that have their roots in direct collaboration from academia with outside (underprivileged, marginalised) communities as an integral element of research and education. Case examples and experiences from three different continents are discussed, giving some perspective on the simultaneous universality and contextualises of human values and social justice.
TALKS:
Knowledge for Service: Digital Technology Positives and Negatives in African Rural Societies Saa Dittoh
Many decades ago (and possibly now in some areas) in rural Africa, communal methods of information sharing were not always face-to-face; some were virtual, through high-pitched voices and loud sounding “talking drums” that gave “coded information”. No wonder that many African rural societies have no reservations about adopting appropriate modern digital technologies. The rapid advance in digital technology has been positive in many ways. Still, several harmful and damaging aspects threaten the values, cultures, and even the very existence of some African rural societies’ very existence. In this talk, I discuss those threats and suggests ways to counter them. This talk further highlights how knowledge can be put to service and how university students can be engaged in this.
Digital Sociotechnical Innovation and Indigenous Knowledge Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer
In this talk, I will discuss how university research and education on digital technology can empower under-served communities. I particularly describe the eBario program as a long-standing university-community partnership between the rural Kelabit community, one of Borneo ethnic minorities, and the University Malaysia Sarawak. This program to bridge the digital divide started in 1998, with the indigenous Kelabit community taking on the information and knowledge creation pathway as a way forward. Over the past two decades, the program has evolved to become recognised as a living laboratory, influencing practice and policy, with, for example, a role in poverty reduction. eBario, as an ICT for Development model, has been replicated to cover eight other sites across the Peninsula and East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak. However, the biggest achievement resides in the development of community scholars and the community-led life-long-learning initiatives that go on till today.
Digital Divide, Inclusion and Community Service Learning Anna Bon
Community service-learning (CSL) is an educational approach that we have further developed in collaboration with universities and stakeholders in the Global South into a research and education model dubbed: ICT4D 3.0. This model combines problem-solving and situational learning with meaningful service to communities and society. In computer science and artificial intelligence education – traditionally purely technologically oriented – ICT4D 3.0 integrates CSL’s societal and ethical principles with user-centred design and socio-technical problem-solving. Being exposed to complex, societal real-world problems, students learn by exploring, reflecting, co-designing in close interaction with communities in a real-world environment. This type of education provides a rich learning environment for “Bildung”.
To participate via Zoom with password: 0dzqxqiy. The talk will also be live-streamed and recorded on YouTube.
For further announcements and information about the speakers, see here.
